


middle distance

by blooddrool



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, canon-typical worms (mentioned), mag160 spoilers, the one where martin and mike are friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21804352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blooddrool/pseuds/blooddrool
Summary: Martin leans forward, elbows on the table; it wobbles, one leg shorter than the others.  Their drinks slosh dangerously.  “What if I just… don’t?  What if I don't choose?”This, Mike doesn’t know for sure.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Michael "Mike" Crew, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 10
Kudos: 98
Collections: Rusty Quill Secret Santa 2019





	middle distance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quantumducky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumducky/gifts).



> part of the 2019 rusty quill secret santa !! for [quantumducky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumducky)  
> prompt: Some sort of AU where Mike isn't, y'know, dead, and Martin goes to him for advice/to complain about the several fear entities attempting to court/claim him (Elias, Peter, the spiders... anything else you can fit in lol) since Mike is, of course, the absolute legend who said "no thanks" to the Spiral and shopped around for cursed books until he found one he liked.
> 
> note: some gentle worm talk in the first section. the rest is very tame.

**i.** The Corruption

Michael Crew has an unlikely friendship with a man named Martin Blackwood. But, well, maybe _friendship_ is too strong.

Michael Crew has an unlikely… _acquaintanceship_ with a man named Martin Blackwood. Ah, but then, on second thought, that feels unkind, and Martin Blackwood has been nothing but good in the short time that Mike has known him. He’s sort of funny like that, Mike thinks. _Good_ , and _nice_. And courteous, too, which Mike thinks that all friends ought to be to each other. Friends are _respectful_. Friends tell each other things — and Martin certainly does enough of that, though Mike honestly cannot fathom _why_. 

He may not be very good at it himself, this _friendship_ thing, but Martin is. Martin is _it_ , in fact. A right pinnacle of friendship. A big man with a big heart — or something equally disgusting. Mike’s never known himself to be so sentimental. But, alright. It’s settled: they’re friends.

It’s why they meet up, sometimes. For coffee, occasionally. For conversation, mostly.

It’s why Mike knows all about Martin’s job, “spooky” and “weird”, though far spookier and weirder than he seems to realize. Mike’s not really that interested in telling him, in letting him in on the joke. As far as Martin is concerned, Mike’s just a guy he knows.

At least until Jane Prentiss gets her filthy, worm-infested hands on him. Or on his front door, at least. And his phone, apparently. Mike has to admit, he hadn’t pegged Martin as much of a survivalist type, but he handled himself alright. Not a whole lot one can do against a flood of supernatural, flesh-eating worms, but Martin–

“I don’t– We don’t actually know if they’re flesh- _eating_ worms?” Martin interrupts, “Flesh- _burrowing_ , yeah. Flesh- _boring_?” He shrugs.

“What happens to the flesh they bore through, then?” 

Martin scuffs the heel of his shoe against the concrete. “I guess they… Maybe they push it out of the way?”

Mike thinks of that: little silver worm bodies forcing through soft skin and red tissue. Shoving themselves in like a nail or twisting down like a screw? Now there’s a thought. He takes a long, slow drag of his cigarette, pondering. Where they’re standing, propped up against the Institute’s back-alley wall, their shadows stretch long and thin out towards the street.

“Does that make them more or less frightening to you?”

Mike watches Martin’s face twitch, creases between his eyebrows deepening and darkening. Martin hasn’t stepped more than ten feet outside the Institute since he escaped Prentiss, but Mike doesn’t dare step inside. He tells Martin he needs a smoke; it’s as good an excuse as any.

He offers that smoke to Martin now, looking pale and gaunt, dark around the eyes. He’s not surprised when Martin shakes his head, just shrugs and takes another pull. Probably for the best.

“Less,” Martin says eventually, quiet, like he’s only just now realized that _less_ frightening is still _frightening_. “It’s better to think that they– That she– That, somehow, they’d prefer to share my space with me. Rather than just… eat it up.”

Mike nods. If the Flesh ever got ahold of Martin, it would spit him out real nasty, Mike thinks, and flicks ash off the end of his cigarette.

  
  


**ii.** The Eye

They’re in a library — _not_ the Institute’s — when Martin says, apropos of nothing, “I don’t know how to help Jon.”

“Jon,” Mike repeats, “Your Archivist?” slowly, as if he doesn’t know of Robinson’s successor. As if _any_ of them don’t know of Robinson’s successor. Say what you will about this Fear or that, but their agents are all terrible gossips. Mike’s heard the whispers.

“He’s not–” Martin starts, stops. Too loud and he knows it, hunched over a table with one of those nice green reading lamps throwing strange shadows over his face. He starts again, hushed, “He’s not _my_ archivist.”

He’s right, of course. Jonathan Sims is the Eye’s Archivist, Bouchard’s Archivist, but Mike isn’t going to tell Martin that. He thumbs through the yellowed pages of the book in front of him instead — not anything he’s particularly interested in, but Martin had asked for the company, and there was a skyline illustrated on the cover. The library is dotted with academic types, all of them smaller than Martin, and all of them smoother skinned than Mike.

“He just– He’s paranoid, thinks someone’s out to get him,” Martin says, “Which, I guess is _alright_ , considering… But he thinks it’s one of _us_.”

“Well, it certainly isn’t you.”

“No, of course it isn’t _me_!” Too loud again, but there’s fire in it this time. Mike watches Martin take a breath, collect himself back up again, and say, “Jon says he’s constantly being watched. Or he feels like it, anyways? And, and I do too? But it’s not the same. It doesn’t scare me so much as it…” He makes a face, sort of scrunches his nose and looks down at his hands and his papers and his books, his research. “I’m just curious.”

And that’s not particularly interesting — Martin works within the Eye itself, right there at the edges of its wet, dark pupil; he’s bound to pick up some of its quirks — but Mike considers a development a development, all the same. Martin’s ripe for it. It won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone to discover that the Eye is what gets its teeth into him first, though Mike doesn’t think Martin would appreciate the metaphor.

“What about you, then?” Mike asks, “Who do you think it is?”

Martin opens his mouth almost immediately, choking out a short sound before snapping himself closed tight again. He has a suspicion, obviously, he’s just too smart to blurt it out. So he’s learning, then. Mike admires his growth.

“I think it’s… Gertrude was _shot_ ,” he says, down low like a mumbled secret, “ _Gertrude_ was _shot_ ,” and Mike catches his meaning.

He closes his book, traces a finger over the point of a skyscraper on the cover, pretends he can feel its needle-sharpness like a jolt of electricity. Very smart, indeed.

  
  


**iii.** The Web

Mike meets Jonathan Sims, and it’s pleasant for a while, until it’s not anymore.

Mike dies, and it’s pleasant for a while, until it’s not anymore.

He doesn’t know where he went, exactly, when he was dead — or if _dead_ is really even what he was. He thinks of the phrase “staring into the middle distance”, and that feels close enough. Neither here nor there, close nor far away. Just a wide open space, somewhere in the inbetween. Peaceful, falling down and up and sideways.

Coming back was– It was bad. Painful. A hard, crushing impact without the satisfaction of hitting the ground. A billion volts of electricity slamming through him without the solace of their marks left on his skin. But he endures, because he has no choice in the matter, and his god rewards him by prying him out of the End’s quiet clutches and _dropping_ him.

He’s fed his Fear well; it chooses now to feed him in return. The lesson: feed what feeds you. Embrace your reward.

And it’s a lesson he learns well, in that split second between the floating, falling nothing and the sudden, waking reality of his eyes opening beneath the earth. It’s a lesson he’d like to teach Martin, now that Martin knows enough to bear being taught. But, well, that’ll come in its own time.

“So,” Martin starts, “When were you going to recruit me?”

Mike blinks. They’re at a pub, this time, just busy enough to keep eyes from wandering, voices from being heard. Mike’s waiting on his stout. Martin’s on his second tumbler of whiskey, and Mike suspects he’ll be calling him a cab by the end of the night. Mike would probably want to get sloshed, too, if he were in Martin’s position.

“I’m not really the recruiting type,” he says plainly — and honestly, too. Their waitress comes by with his stout, dark and frothy and sweating a cold, wet ring into a name-brand napkin. “Never even considered it, actually,” and he finds that this is true as well. Martin was never well suited to the Vast.

“Never?”

Mike quirks an eyebrow at him, sips some of the head off his beer.

“I think I…” he ducks down into his whiskey, trying to make himself smaller, Mike thinks, “I think I would have. Probably.”

Ah. Mike understands. His drink is actually quite good, and he savors another swallow before replying. “That’s the Web in you, then.”

“The Web,” Martin repeats, like he’s never experienced the novelty of saying it and knowing what it means before, and then his face locks down, flattens out, and Mike feels maybe a little bit bad.

“Not accusing,” he says, “Just speculating.”

“Sure,” dripping with sarcasm, and that’s a little more like it, “But that _is_ it, isn’t it? There’s things moving. Pieces and people.” Martin huffs a breath, a big man with a big heart, world-weary. “I can see the threads.”

Mike looks at him. His thumb taps absently against the pale, electric fractal that arcs up the length of his right forearm. He presses his fingerprints into each familiar, jagged branch, imagines his nerves jumping and leaping against one another. He decides to be a friend.

“The spiders are subtle,” he says, watching Martin’s eyes track back up to his face, “but no Fear is as subtle as it likes to pretend it is. You can see them: you can stop them. Or avoid them.” He shrugs, “If that’s what you want, anyways. You have agency, don’t you? A choice. Accept them, turn them away, squash them under your heel– Though I’m not sure I’d recommend that last.”

Martin leans forward, elbows on the table; it wobbles, one leg shorter than the others. Their drinks slosh dangerously. “What if I just… don’t? Choose?”

This, Mike doesn’t know for sure. “I suppose the Web will choose for you. Or _something_ will, in any case. It might also just kill you — I don’t know. Never been very close to the spiders, myself.”

Martin snorts, at that, quiet but too quick, like it’s been startled out of him. He downs the remainder of his drink in two long swallows, the burn plain on his face. “Your pep talks are _not_ good,” he says, slightly croaky.

But he’s right, so Mike laughs. “They don’t have to be; I’m paying your tab.”

And he does — pay Martin’s tab, that is. He ends up calling that cab, too, and as he stands on the curb next to Martin’s bulk, feeling slightly warm and tipsy and dizzy, he tells him, “I’m sorry I almost killed your Archivist.”

Martin sways. It’s dark, but Mike thinks he can see Martin smiling.

“I’m sorry that my Archivist got you killed,” Martin replies, slurred around the edges.

The cab pulls up. Mike doesn’t bother correcting him, doesn’t even think to, and sends him on his way.

  
  


**iv.** The Lonely

The Lonely has a very specific scent to it. Spraying seawater, dirty metal, and cold, worn-in leather — jackets and gloves and boots. It smells the way that cracking, creaking icecaps sound. It smells like someplace Mike might like to visit.

Martin reeks of it, of course. Mike had expected this (again: gossip), though that’s not to say that he’s put off. No, not at all. The Vast and the Lonely get on alright — even swimmingly, sometimes, when there’s no money involved. Insignificance and solitude do make quite the pair.

Martin’s found him this time, though Mike can’t be sure how. Followed a scent of his own, maybe. Tracked him down the same way that Mike identifies him without turning around, emerging through the roof access door with the wind at his back. Animals of instinct, they are, and there’s likely something profound to be said about that, but Mike’s really just not that deep.

Martin joins him at the edge of the roof and leans over the waist-high wall, scanning the skyline. He makes less noise than he should. The scratch of his jacket against the concrete is barely a whisper. He’s still just as big, maybe even a little bit bigger with the way that he carries himself, but he’s easier to ignore now.

Mike does not mind.

“It’s nice,” Martin says, and he sounds like he means it, “London’s really not so bad from up here.”

Mike hums his agreement. It _is_ nice, he thinks, but only for a few of the same reasons. The height is dizzying. And thrilling. And lonely. And peaceful for the both of them. Mike could probably spot the Institute from here, if he cared to.

But he doesn’t care to, and instead taps a cigarette out of its case. “How’s Lukas?” he asks, cigarette between his lips, flicking his lighter on. The first drag sends heat flooding through his lungs and his limbs, and maybe he leans just a bit too far over the edge for Martin’s comfort, but it’s worth it for the way his stomach lurches.

Martin’s not watching him anyways. He’s looking out at the clouds that halo one of the even taller buildings. “He’s… in no position to run a business of any kind, much less a multi-branching institute,” Martin says, “but he’s– He’s alright.”

He doesn’t seem inclined to say much else on the matter. Or any matter, maybe, and they stand together in silence for the length of time it takes Mike to smoke his cigarette down to the filter. He flicks it off the side of the building, smirking at the nasty look Martin gives him. He’s reaching for another — not usually much of a chain smoker, but it gives him something to do — when Martin’s hand stutters out into the space between them.

“Can I– Ah,” his mouth twists into something embarrassing, “Can I?”

Mike passes him one, and Martin takes it like he’s never held a cigarette before in his life. Mike pinches his own between his teeth, fishing his lighter back out of his pocket, and Martin does the same, mimicking him. It makes Mike feel bizarrely sentimental, all over again.

He lights them both up, hand around the flame, and Martin surprises him by breathing slow and deep. One cough, one and a half. Two-ish. Mike kind of thought he might throw up. He is both disappointed and impressed.

And then Martin says, “Jon’s been making it hard,” and it drops out of his mouth like a stone, down over the edge of the roof, down, down, down to the street below where it cracks like an egg.

“Jon,” he says. He does not say _your Archivist_. “Why?”

“He’s just–” oh, he sounds so very frustrated, “I don’t know why he can’t just– Why he would pick _now_ , of _all times_ , to be– To be–”

“To be Jon.”

Martin makes a noise like a wounded animal. His hand is shaking when he brings his cigarette back up to his mouth. Mike doesn’t apologize and he thinks that Martin probably doesn’t want him to. They lapse back into silence, into that peaceful quiet, and, though the space between them stretches on and on and on, it is not uncomfortable.

Eventually, Mike is smoking his filter again.

“Martin,” he says, “There are more choices than those you’ve already made.”

It seems to be what Martin needs to hear, or something close to it, because his shoulders firm up and his eyes become clear. He looks Mike dead in the eyes and it reminds him of just how big he is.

“Thank you,” Martin says.

The cherry of his cigarette burns bright in Mike’s mind, but he can’t remember the moment when Martin actually left.

  
  


**v.** The Archivist

They do not meet at the end of the world, but at the beginning of the new one.

And what a beauty she is, this new Archivist’s World. Mike can fall for days and days and days and never hit the ground. Or always hit the ground. Whatever he likes. The swooping, lurching feeling in his gut doesn’t have to dull, doesn’t have to end, doesn’t have to do anything but stay and lift him up and feed his god. If he ever sees the Archivist again, he might just thank him.

He doesn’t know where he is when he sees Martin again. Space as a dimension has changed. He’s aware of the air around him, rushing and still, a single sky that is either above him or below him or behind him or far, far away from him, the Eye that is fixed there, fixed on him and on all of them, and very little else. And then: Martin.

Martin’s just Martin now. It’s the first thing Mike notices, seeing him here, and it strikes him as odd. Out of place, somehow, but not out of step. Unclaimed. But everything is claimed now, in the Archivist’s World. Claimed by one Fear or fought over by two, or three, or ten.

But Martin. Martin is Martin’s.

“Mike,” he greets, and, oh, would you look at that. He seems happy. Balanced. “It’s good to see you.”

Mike hums. He’s not so sure which way is up, anymore, or down, but he knows that he’s happy too.

Martin looks back someplace behind him, and Mike takes notice of a house. A cottage. He thinks of the word _domestic_ and it makes him laugh, breath steaming in the open air.

“Tea?” Martin asks.

“Oh, sure,” Mike says, “If you’re brewing.”

**Author's Note:**

> happy to admit that the "not my archivist" bit was directly inspired by [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20606360) by quantumducky.


End file.
